Posts Tagged ‘savemuni’

“SUMMARY: Despite Muni’s anticipated celebration of the receipt of the federal grant agreement for the Central Subway, SaveMuni.com cautions that the project is still not a done deal because, as set forth in the lawsuit, the current plan violates Section 4.113 of the San Francisco City Charter.

In approving its grant agreement (FFGA) for the subway, the federal government has opted to ignore the City Charter, which it is free to do. However, since Muni cannot ignore the City Charter, SaveMuni.com urges the agency to refrain from spending any federal funds on the project until it has a legally approved plan, because any and all federal funds spent on an unapproved project are at risk to being returned to the federal government.

BACKGROUND: On Wednesday October 10, 2012, a lawsuit was filed in Superior Court on behalf of SaveMuni.com. The lawsuit seeks to prevent the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) from extending a subway station into Union Square, a public park, without the approval of the San Francisco electorate as required under SF City Charter Section 4.113. If our lawsuit is successful, the SFMTA will have the choice of either finding a station location that does not intrude upon Union Square or putting the question to a public vote.

Other SaveMuni.com actions now under active consideration include a plan to qualify an initiative measure for next year’s San Francisco ballot that would bring a halt to the Central Subway project unless and until the SFMTA demonstrates that it has met the Muni operational performance standards set forth in the City Charter.

As SaveMuni.com representatives have stated many times in public testimony, and as set forth and laid out in detail on SaveMuni.com’s website, the violation referred to above is just one of many major flaws embedded in the SFMTA’s Central Subway program.

Until recently, we had expected that the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) would react to these flaws by rejecting the Central Subway as a candidate for a federal New Starts grant. Our confidence that the FTA would act appropriately in this matter was based on the explicit New Starts enabling legislation (49 USC §5303 Sections c, d and g) and on the FTA’s exemplary past record of guarding the federal treasury. In the past, the FTA acted under a comprehensive set of rigorous cost-effectiveness guidelines designed to prevent federal funds from being squandered on local boondoggles. Unless a candidate New Starts project met the standards it simply didn’t make it through the approval process. However, we have found that in recent years politics has watered down the FTA’s traditional record of professionalism.

For the past 5 years, the government of San Francisco has steadfastly refused to listen to a long and growing list of Central Subway opponents, including over 50 neighborhood groups, the Sierra Club, the San Francisco City Attorney, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury, former elected officials who now regret having approved the project and other officials who privately ridicule it, the residents and businesses of North Beach, at least two former Mayors and 235 members of the US House of Representatives.

With the FTA having abdicated its watchdog responsibilities, it appears that SaveMuni.com, the Coalition of San Francisco Neighbors and the other San Francisco neighborhood, environmental and civic groups opposed to the project are the only remaining fiscal watchdogs still trying to turn the SFMTA’s attention back to its long neglected 70 existing bus and rail lines.

If despite our efforts, the government of San Francisco remains on its current path, it appears that San Francisco will suffer six years of severe construction disruption followed by the advent of a marginally useful and money-losing Central Subway operation. Among the adverse effects of the Central Subway are the $15.2 million a year it would add to the cost of operating and maintaining Muni and the diversion of Muni’s existing light rail T-Line from AT&T Park, the San Francisco waterfront, the Ferry Building, the Financial District and the Market Street subway lines. And finally, there is the fact that the Central Subway somehow manages to miss 25 of the 30 east-west transit lines it crosses, including all the lines on and under Market Street and all the lines on Mission Street.

In addition to the local effects, the project would drain away an unnecessary $61.3 million in State 1A HSR connectivity bond money from the essentially bankrupt State of California to allegedly connect the Central Subway to California’s future HSR system, when in fact it would actually disconnect the existing T-Line from that system.

Even more damaging is the plan to deny other, more deserving Muni projects a total of $306 million in State 1B rail bond money that is currently earmarked for the Central Subway project.

And finally, the Central Subway program, if it proceeds, will eat up no less than $942 million in federal funds at a time when the U.S. federal government can ill afford to waste resources on politically-inspired local pet projects.

Tomorrow’s execution of the federal grant agreement for the Central Subway will formalize the refusal of San Francisco’s politicians to seriously consider the obvious major flaws in the project. For this reason SaveMuni.com is seeking redress before the SF Superior Court to force these politicians to let the people of San Francisco decide whether or not they want to proceed with the Central Subway project as currently configured.”

If San Francisco could magically get the “Subway to Nowhere” Central Subway installed today for free it would still be a bad deal for San Francisco, mostly owing the very small amount benefits it would provide to a very small number of people and the very large hole it would put into MUNI”s annual budget.

But unless the Feds help out San Francisco by cancelling funding, politically connected players such as AECOM are all set to make a mint off of this project. Oh well.

Anyway, San Francisco officials are still trying to reassure the Feds about how great this horrible project is going, so, as of tomorrow, we’ll be on the hook for another $100,000,000, or so, to make up for the fact that California doesn’t want to chip in the money.

“On May 1, 2012, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) Board will be asked to approve Central Subway revenue bonds, of undetermined amount, to plug a large hole that has developed in the Central Subway budget. This is a very risky course of action.

A shortfall of between $61.3 million and $140 million has now appeared in the project budget. In order to make up for this substantial loss of previously anticipated State of California funding, the MTA staff is asking its Board and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to approve a revenue bond sale of undetermined amount. On the agenda of the May 1, 2012 MTA Board meeting, the bond authorization is scheduled as Item 10.4 which is unaccountably included under the Board’s consent calendar rather than its regular calendar. In the Agenda packet, the staff attributes the need for the revenue bond sale to “uncertainty regarding HSR in California.” This statement is false and misleading, for the reasons set forth below.”

Here are the deets:

“SaveMuni.com April 30, 2012

MTA’s Stealth Maneuver to Commit Additional City Funds to the Central Subway

On May 1, 2012, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) Board will be asked to approve Central Subway revenue bonds, of undetermined amount, to plug a large hole that has developed in the Central Subway budget. This is a very risky course of action.

The cost of the MTA’s Central Subway project has ballooned from $647 million to the current estimate of $1.58 billion.i The original plan was for $983 million of this total to come from the federal government, $471 from the State of California and $124 million from San Francisco’s Prop K sales tax fund.

In attempting to sell the subway to the public, MTA has repeatedly called the public’s attention to its “success” in leveraging a mere $124 million City & County contribution into a $1.58 billion subway.ii However, a shortfall of between $61.3 million and $140 million has now appeared in the project budget.

In order to make up for this substantial loss of previously anticipated State of California funding, the MTA staff is asking its Board and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to approve a revenue bond sale of undetermined amount. On the agenda of the May 1, 2012 MTA Board meeting, the bond authorization is scheduled as Item 10.4 which is unaccountably included under the Board’s consent calendar rather than its regular calendar. In the Agenda packet, the staff attributes the need for the revenue bond sale to “uncertainty regarding HSR in California”. This statement is false and misleading, for the reasons set forth below.

The MTA is caught between a skittish Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) appropriately worried about the MTA’s financial ability to handle the Central Subway project and a huge shortfall in the non-federal share of the project budget. The MTA apparently believes the solution to this problem is to skim millions of dollars a year from already overburdened Muni revenues, in order to sell revenue bonds as necessary to make up for the loss in State capital—all in hopes that the action will reassure the feds and therefore put the hoped-for federal grant back on track.

The best that could be said of the MTA’s plan is that it is extremely risky. By far, the most important element of that risk is that the costs of servicing the revenue bonds, coupled with an indeterminate amount of project overrun (estimated by CGR Management Consultants to be as high as $422 million), could result in unacceptably high Muni fare increases and/or unacceptably damaging Muni service cuts.”

I’ll tell you, I don’t exactly know how San Francisco managed to get (basically) free water and (basically) free electricity through flooding half of the good part of the Yosemite National Park area, but somehow, through bribery, corruption or whatnot, we got a sweetheart deal to take advantage of Hetch Hetchy in perpetuity.

Of course the right thing to do would be to start sharing the benefits of Hetch Hetchy with the rest of California, or at least pay market price for what we’re getting, or just tear down the damn dam altogether. Something like that.

But the single-party state of San Francisco doesn’t want to do anything like that. The single-party state of San Francisco wants to hold on to the Hetch Hetchy deal for as long as possible. Maybe some Republicans can help us find the right path…

Speaking of which, the federally-funded Central Subway [cough, BIG DIG II, cough – and you know, Boston’s Big Dig is different because it had a chance to actually benefit people] project is useless and horribly corrupt. It will burden San Francisco for decades, whether it gets used or not.

Why don’t we stop this thing [cough, BRIDGE TO NOWHERE, cough] right now? And Feds, why not just call it even? So we won’t pay you back the $200,000,000 but you all will end up saving big bucks.

It’ll be up to you, Congressional Republicans, to save us from wasting money on the Central Subway [cough, ROAD TO NOWHERE, cough – hey, I bet you didn’t know about that one!]

The Central Subway to Chinatown is the replacement for our long-dead Embarcadero Freeway to Chinatown. And somehow, calling the Central Subway the Subway to Nowhere is considered racist and hurtful, but calling the Embarcadero Freeway the Freeway to Nowhere, well, that’s good times. See?

The Central Subway means more Muni service cuts and fare/ fee increases.

The Central Subway Project has drained over $500 million of state and local funding from the citywide Muni system. Facing a $19.6 million deficit in 2012 and $33.6 million in 2013, San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) threatens more service cuts and fare/ fee increases—after cuts/ increases in 2009 and 2010. SFMTA projects $1.6 billion in budget deficits and $25.4 billion of capital needs over the next twenty years. While Muni infrastructure crumbles, Muni’s $1.9 billion in deferred maintenance is a ticking nuclear bomb.

Muni wouldn’t have budget deficits—if scarce dollars were used wisely.

The Central Subway Project has usurped over $500 million of state/ local funds from system-wide Muni needs—exacerbating system meltdowns and rider discontentment. Service cuts, fare increases, parking/ meter rate hikes, painful traffic citations and frustrated Muni riders have subsidized the Central Subway Project. No degree of service cuts and fare/fee increases will offset Muni’s mismanagement of assets and existing funds.

Instead of the tiny 1.7 mile Central Subway, hundreds of miles of Transit Preferential Streets can be created with the Central Subway’s existing state/ local funds—benefiting all Muni riders, taxpayers and neighborhoods.

With its uniqueness, character, Mediterranean-scale, geographic beauty and topographic splendor, San Francisco’s northeast quadrant is a natural pedestrian realm. The distance from Downtown to Fisherman’s Wharf is 1-½ miles. Columbus Avenue is 1 mile long. Washington Square is 1 mile from the Powell BART/Metro Station. Chinatown is ½ mile from Market Street. As seen in cities throughout the world, these are distances opportune for a pulsating street life.

“The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) today began penalty considerations based on CPUC staff allegations of pervasive safety concerns regarding the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s (SFMTA or Muni) light rail system. This action was taken after CPUC safety inspectors found numerous safety violations on Muni’s light rail system in San Francisco. In their report to the CPUC, the inspectors have alleged that SFMTA has been chronically unresponsive to alleged violations and other findings.”

“If you’re a regular Muni rider, you know that delays are common on weekday commutes to and from work. You might not know, however, that San Francisco’s transportation agency has routinely fallen short on safety inspections for the past year and a half, according to a report released this week by the California Public Utilities Commission.”

DON’T LET LOBBYISTS OVERRIDE YOUR INTERESTS.

If the Central Subway were truly a sound transportation project, than politicians, public officials and lobbyists wouldn’t be needed to twist the arms of the public and decision-makers. Instead, a multi-million dollar media campaign has pitched the Central Subway like snake oil and subprime derivatives, using Muni funds to lobby Muni’s own customers, governing bodies and officials.

The top ten clients who promised payments for lobbying surfaces some of the most controversial issues at City Hall.

California Pacific Medical Center promised the most in payments for lobbying, at $750,985. Aecom, which is leading the Central Subway and other projects, ranked second at $360,000. Third was Millennium Partners, also at $360,000.”

NOTE: Even while the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is evaluating the Central Subway project, the FTA Administrator defended the project in the Wall Street Journal—responding to an Editorial that blasted the Subway Boondoggle. The conflict of interest is worsened by transit data that shows the Central Subway decreasing transit service levels and travel times for tens of thousands of riders.

Instead of Muni service cutbacks, fare/ fee increases and crumbling infrastructure, imagine how the Central Subway’s hundreds of millions of dollars in existing state/ local funds could revitalize the citywide Muni System. Political leaders do pay heed to well-reasoned arguments of their constituents.

On November 15, 2011, the Transportation Authority held a hearing on the new MTA Audit and ignored the Audit’s 46-page “Appendix VI: Central Subway Project”. Several press articles reported that the Audit examined 29 construction projects, excluding the Central Subway Project. But in fact, the “Limited Scope Performance Audit” evaluated the Subway’s financial risks—although it did not study transit effectiveness because of the contract’s limited scope.

Auditors may be constrained in their criticism—especially when the scope of work is narrow and their client is a likely future customer. But reading between the lines, the Audit forewarns of potential future fiscal troubles. SOME HIGHLIGHTS:

·“The potential for variation in the final cost of the project is large” (Page 172): The Audit expands on the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) concerns about construction and financial risks. In the context of the Audit’s study of 29 MTA construction projects and their delays/ cost escalations, past performance is an indicator of future risks.

·“The Central Subway Project is the highest risk project that the SFMTA has undertaken” (Page 184): The Audit expands on the FTA’s concerns.

·“There is a 30% likelihood of the total project cost in year of expenditure dollars being equal to or less than $1,578 million” (Page 185). The audit couches potential cost overruns in terms of financial probability theory. Although construction contingency dollars and schedules have been increased, the history of large infrastructure projects, in the Bay Area and throughout the United States, shows astronomical cost overruns and unpredictability—within the same financial/ management models. Moreover, in latest project budgets, contingency dollars appear to have decreased.

·“A study of the funds required for maintaining the state-of-good-repair expenditures revealed that SFMTA’s total assets on the FTA’s Condition Code were above the 2.5 out of 5 minimum required by the FTA” (Page 197). With the current $1.9 billion in deferred maintenance and $1.6 billion in budget deficits over the next 20 years, MTA should have already devoted higher expenditures to maintain assets in a state of repair. Instead, the Central Subway will only lead to more service cuts, life-safety threats and draconian revenue hikes—unless the project is halted.

·“However, full funding is not guaranteed and the availability of funds when needed may still be an issue” (Page 198). Officials and the citizenry are increasingly scrutinizing the Central Subway’s data falsifications and misrepresentations—while the FTA reviews the final application and the State of California faces increasing budget deficits and bond indebtedness.

·“The Audit Team is not aware of consequences for the [MTA] Board or the Board Members if performance is unsatisfactory, nor are there any criteria that define what constitutes unsatisfactory performance” (Page 210). By the Central Subway’s estimated completion date in 2019, most elected officials will not be in office and many MTA staff will be retired. History indicates that it’s too easy to spend other people’s money. The political benefits and quid pro quo of large infrastructure projects outweigh actual transportation benefits. Unless the MTA Board, staff, consultants, Supervisors and Mayor bear some personal liability, taxpayers will be singularly liable for future cost overruns and crippling deficits.

·“Now, at the half-way point in the project, the cost estimates at completion are approximately double that at initiation” (Page 213). Again, past performance is an indicator of future performance.

·“[SFMTA] will comply with Prop K policies to delay the expenditure of Prop K funds to the extent possible without putting the project at risk” (Page 271). However, the Subway’s budgets show $72 million of Prop K funds will be expended in the next two years. The recent MTA contract for tunnel boring machines usurped $57 million of Prop K sales tax funds—in lieu of restoring service cuts or improving citywide Muni.

Per the video, Bevan thinks that people don’t have any idea that Rose Pak was the first Chinese American reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle? I think they do and I’m not sure how this bears on the CS. (You know, some people want to take steps to improve the 30 Stockton corridor like right now, instead of after a decade of delays and cost overruns. Is that racist to want to improve things now? How is it that “transit justice” can only be satisfied by the current horrible, horribly expensive, Bridge-to-Nowhere Central Subway scheme? I’m baffled.)

Bevan says that “90% of the Central Subway will be paid by the federal government?” This seems impossible to me. Is this in writing? Does it include past and future overruns?

Bevan says that the CS has to come before any other major project, such as putting rails in on Geary. But he doesn’t say why.

Bevan says that we would lose in excess of $100,000,000 if we pull the plug now. I thought it was closer to $200,000,000 myself but of course bad transit decisions cost money. The question is what should we do at this point. (I think we’d all be better off taking a new tack by simply paying back the Feds.)

I don’t know, if anybody wants to go line-by-line on today’s updated critique from Save MUNI, be my guest. (To be honest, I don’t know how anybody can defend the station placement decisions, the car-length decision, the let’s stop at southern Chinatown decision, among others. The CS is a politics-first, transit-last project, IMO.

(And oh, BTW, there’s a pool going on right now around town about what position Bevan will be appointed to and when. FYI.)

On October 27, the Board of Supervisors Government Audits and Oversight Committee will consider the results of the Grand Jury’s seven month investigation of the Central Subway debacle. SaveMuni will support the well reasoned conclusions of the Grand Jury’s report and provide new information about the Central Subway and its failings.

SaveMuni will also expose and rebut the MTA’s weak response to the Grand Jury report, which consists mainly of vague generalizations intended to defend the status quo at all costs. Because of MTA’s and Mayor’s inadequate responses we will call upon the Board of Supervisors to table the matter until such time as the MTA and Mayor Lee have provided detailed and well thought out responses to each of the Grand Jury’s findings and recommendations.

What:Save Muni.com’s first general meeting. Discussion and voting on Supervisor Sean Elsbernd’s ballot measure designed to remove the salary-setting for Muni drivers from the City Charter. A ballot proposition can only be endorsed if it receives the approval of 2/3rds of the members of the Organization in attendance at a General Meeting. Those who participated in the December 5th planning meeting, or registered at the March 6, 2010 Save Muni Summit, or both, constitute the voting membership of SaveMuni.com and have a vote on endorsement. Supervisor Elsbernd and the Union have been invited.“

Look for the Elsbernd side to win by a Raul Castro-like percentage on this vote, based upon the stringent requirements for suffrage. Still, everybody loves a thunderdome, everybody loves a MUNI cage match.